Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Enfermería General

I normally hate doing my laundry in Washington Heights, in part because doing one's laundry is one of the more tedious activities in his life, but mostly because the Heights is full of degenerates and scumbags. In fact, I find it hilarious that there's a musical about the Heights out right now. Somehow, I'm not sure that putting sexual harassment, littering, and gang violence to music makes anything better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not familiar with the rich culture all around me that, as a white man, I simply can't appreciate. Well, all I know is what I've seen. And I've seen lady friends move out of the Heights because of the constant barrage of aggressive men, glass bottles being thrown at passers-by, raw chicken being "delivered" to chimichurri trucks by having it thrown on the street, and a steady line of makeshift memorials to dead gangbangers. I've lived there about six years now, and I fail to see the charm.

Especially in the laundromat, which, in the Heights, doubles as a recreation center (read: place to dump one's obnoxious children). Even though last night's trip to the laundromat was relatively hassle free, I'm always amazed at the idiosyncrasies these people have simply doing the wash. Such as jury rigging EVERY machine in the place so only Fonzie could make them work properly. And, instead of putting a decent amount of clothes in a few dryers and drying them for a half hour, they like to put two or three items in each of fifteen dryers and dry them for five minutes. This practice leads to not only dryer monopoly, but it also makes one wonder why there's a single sock and a pair of shorts tumbling alone together, as if dancing a forbidden dance that only clothes understand. But the best laundromat quirk HAS to be the Spanish language soap operas they have BLASTING on the television in the corner. Last night's exciting tale involved women SCREAMING in some sort of dungeon while this borderline gay villain in a cape kept mildly threatening them. And despite the drama, the music would occasionally switch to a sort of bumbling, cartoon lilt and the prisoners would have exasperated fake fights with each other. And, my Spanish may be shaky, but from what I could make out, the theme song to this televisual gem involved the devil and love.

For all I know, that's what it was called. The Devil and Love. Anybody know if that's a show?